What video games have you been playing V: the return of the subtitle

[Yeekim]

Lastly, outside of the quest locations the Witcher 3 is pretty empty and is basically just pretty filler. Beyond occasionally wanting to look at the scenery I never just wandered off into the wilderness. If I were to wander off to their "points of interest" all I would find really are some bandit camps or monster dens that would give me some paltry experience and crafting loot I already had 20 copies of shoved into Geralt's Bag of Holding.

As someone who cleared all the "points of interest" and did all the sidequests I could find, I'm gonna say you must have missed a lot.
What do you even mean by "outside of the quest locations"? You can't throw a stone in that game without hitting a quest location.

 

[Commodore]

I agree, the reason 200 years seems like too long isn't because of the technology. It all runs on magical, pocket-sized fusion cores. The problem for me is how shabby everything is. People would have made much more progress after 200 years. In places that people didn't rebuild, the buildings would be unrecognizable heaps covered in vegetation.

Now that I think about it, this isn't really the case either. Remember that less than one percent of the population made it into the vaults when the bombs fell. That means the country (and the rest of the world) were severely depopulated. It's hard to rebuild when you don't have the people to do the rebuilding.

Also, there were definitely some attempts to rebuild that we can see, it's just that the people left (aside from the Brotherhood of Steel) simply do not have the know-how to make any significant progress. Think about it: if all of our industrial, communications, and logistical infrastructure/technology disappeared tomorrow and all the people that knew how to rebuild all of it died, how much of all that stuff could you rebuild on your own? Hell, how much of that do you think the people in your community could rebuild on their own? We can reasonable infer that no one is really left to design and build the advanced technology of the past by the weapons we see used. Any firearms or advanced armor we see being used are just leftovers from before the war or manufactured by the Brotherhood of Steel (one of the maybe two or three factions left that can actually build that stuff). Any new weapons and armor built by the survivors are extremely primitive improvised weapons and armor like spears, knives, and leather armor.

There's also the fact that humanity is in a state of total social collapse. Humanity is no longer organized and is just a smattering of scattered settlements that are just trying to secure enough food to survive and protect themselves from other humans who keep trying to kill and enslave them. There is no organized large scale government to direct and manage any serious effort to rebuild.

As for the vegetation not growing over all the old buildings: It simply doesn't grow. Every location we have ever seen in the Fallout universe, with a few exceptions, have always been shown to be barren wastelands where hardly anything is capable of growing. Even the Capital Wasteland was like this. Remember that one little bit Three Dog does when talking about Oasis. He is genuinely shocked and surprised that a place like that exists in the Capital Wasteland. That would seem to indicate that the people of the Capital Wasteland (or anywhere else for that matter) aren't accustomed to seeing living vegetation in the wasteland. I mean, it is called the wasteland for a reason.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Now that I think about it, this isn't really the case either. Remember that less than one percent of the population made it into the vaults when the bombs fell. That means the country (and the rest of the world) were severely depopulated. It's hard to rebuild when you don't have the people to do the rebuilding.

Also, there were definitely some attempts to rebuild that we can see, it's just that the people left (aside from the Brotherhood of Steel) simply do not have the know-how to make any significant progress. Think about it: if all of our industrial, communications, and logistical infrastructure/technology disappeared tomorrow and all the people that knew how to rebuild all of it died, how much of all that stuff could you rebuild on your own? Hell, how much of that do you think the people in your community could rebuild on their own? We can reasonable infer that no one is really left to design and build the advanced technology of the past by the weapons we see used. Any firearms or advanced armor we see being used are just leftovers from before the war or manufactured by the Brotherhood of Steel (one of the maybe two or three factions left that can actually build that stuff). Any new weapons and armor built by the survivors are extremely primitive improvised weapons and armor like spears, knives, and leather armor.

There's also the fact that humanity is in a state of total social collapse. Humanity is no longer organized and is just a smattering of scattered settlements that are just trying to secure enough food to survive and protect themselves from other humans who keep trying to kill and enslave them. There is no organized large scale government to direct and manage any serious effort to rebuild.

As for the vegetation not growing over all the old buildings: It simply doesn't grow. Every location we have ever seen in the Fallout universe, with a few exceptions, have always been shown to be barren wastelands where hardly anything is capable of growing. Even the Capital Wasteland was like this. Remember that one little bit Three Dog does when talking about Oasis. He is genuinely shocked and surprised that a place like that exists in the Capital Wasteland. That would seem to indicate that the people of the Capital Wasteland (or anywhere else for that matter) aren't accustomed to seeing living vegetation in the wasteland. I mean, it is called the wasteland for a reason.

I didn't mean that people would rebuild everything to where it was before the apocalypse. That's silly. But I don't think it would still look like Mad Max. Maybe it would be some version of 18th-Century America, but with the little bits of surviving tech (towns would be built around the fusion-core generators that couldn't be moved, for example). I actually think Diamond City and Rivet City were good and clever examples of a new society building itself in the shell of the old one.

As for the vegetation... I mean, we're talking about a tongue-in-cheek, soft-as-custard sci fi vision of what radiation does. It's basically magic. It reminds me a lot of the old tabletop RPG Gamma World than anything else, which is why I'm disappointed that Fallout 4 doesn't let you play as a Super-Mutant or a Ghoul, or have super-powers and stuff. So the authors can kind of do whatever they want. I just think some vegetation would look better, and would provide more immersive in a land supposedly left to ruin for 200 years. And in radiation-as-magic style, there could be mutated plant monsters, giant fly-traps and strangling vines and stuff.

The total social collapse and lack of any organized society is another reason 20 years settles in my brain better than 200. People would have gotten their [stuff] together better in 200 years. I mean, what they came up with could be just about anything and might not resemble 20th-Century America in the slightest, who knows. But it doesn't jibe with me that it would still be overrun with nihilistic psychos with baseball bats snorting drugs. Those people would all be long dead (kind of by definition, I suppose - why would a nihilistic psycho build a farm and have children? ).

So, yeah, if I just mentally lop a zero off the end of "200 years later..." it makes miles more sense to me.

 

[Traitorfish]

In fairness, you could argue that the places they're showing us are more than typically anarchic, because that's where the fun is. There could be a whole load of functioning agricultural tribes up in Idaho, but it's harder to build an adventure around a setting like that than around the ruins of a major city.

In Fallout 4, they hint that people have only recently started migrating back into the Commonwealth from the interior in the last few generations, while in New Vegas, we're told that there's a whole empire behind the Legion of presumably relatively stable and productive communities. It'd be interesting to see them build on this in later installments, with places like Boston and DC turning out to be frontier colonies which exist to funnel junk into the interior.

 

[Commodore]

The total social collapse and lack of any organized society is another reason 20 years settles in my brain better than 200. People would have gotten their [stuff] together better in 200 years. I mean, what they came up with could be just about anything and might not resemble 20th-Century America in the slightest, who knows. But it doesn't jibe with me that it would still be overrun with nihilistic psychos with baseball bats snorting drugs. Those people would all be long dead (kind of by definition, I suppose - why would a nihilistic psycho build a farm and have children? ).

I think the level of development we see in Fallout 3 makes sense for 200 years after. There are stable settlements all over the wasteland and the nihilistic psychos really aren't all that prevalent or that big of a threat. There is evidence in Fallout 3 that suggests the various raider gangs are routinely and easily fought off by most settlements and only occasionally launch a successful attack against isolated caravans. Also, I don't think the reason we still see raiders is because they are attempting to create stable societies (as you pointed out). I think the reason they are still around is the same reason we still have criminals today: some people just naturally turn to that kind of life. Who knows? Maybe some people become raiders in the Fallout universe because they see it as the "easy way out." Their reasoning might be something like "Why should I work hard to make my own food, medicine, weapons, etc. when I can just shoot this guy in the face and take his stuff?" Sure, that's not a very sustainable lifestyle, but the type of person that would think along those lines isn't really going to be concerned with sustainability.

Those settlements are also said to be experiencing pretty consistent growth. The reason those settlements aren't bigger though, is the lack of drinkable water and arable land. This forces the various settlements to still operate as hunter-gatherers, and that type of society is extremely limited in the amount of growth it can experience. We do also see some large-scale settlements though. Just look at The Pitt. That was a large city that had a government, established social hierarchy, and even large industrial operations. The slavers of Paradise Falls have managed to establish a slave trade that runs from the Capital Wasteland to at least The Pitt and Commonwealth. That coupled with some evidence that traders from The Hub out west have been to the Capital Wasteland indicates that there are the beginnings of a real economy starting to develop that goes beyond the simple barter system.

Without all that though, I would just chalk the state of the Capital Wasteland up to the fact that for some reason the rebuilding has been a lot slower than it seems to have been in the Mojave Wasteland. You know, kind of like how different parts of the world in real life developed at varying paces until they all started coming in contact with one another.

 

[Traitorfish]

I wouldn't regard the raiders as simply pathological. I mean, some of them, yeah, but there's a lot to imply that they're making rational decisions within their own context.

In the West, they're described as "tribals", implying that they do have a coherent social organisation of their own, and it's possible that their role as "raiders" is the one-sided view of New California and New Vegas agriculturalists. If historical tribal societies are anything to go by, raiding is just one behaviour among others, and if it's disproportionately important, that may reflect a response to the increased menace and opportunity represented by the expansion of settled societies. (Indeed, some "tribals", like the Boomers, are treated sympathetically and can be won as allies.)

On the East coast, they don't seem to have the same sort of "tribal" social structures, but they range in social complexity from rag-tag bands to substantial military hosts like the Gunners, and range in aggressiveness from ravaging barbarians to those Norwegian ghouls who stay on their tanker and don't bother anyone.

"Raider", in a Fallout context, doesn't carry a lot more precision than "barbarian", and just because somebody is labelled as a "barbarian" doesn't mean that they're not part of a broader civilising process.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

In fairness, you could argue that the places they're showing us are more than typically anarchic, because that's where the fun is. There could be a whole load of functioning agricultural tribes up in Idaho, but it's harder to build an adventure around a setting like that than around the ruins of a major city..

A Fallout city building game?

 

[Traitorfish]

A Fallout city building game?

That, I would play.

 

[FriendlyFire]

That, I would play.

Dosnt Fallout 4 have that ?
I got bored after equiping all my settlers in combat armour and giving them all Gauss Rifles, as the settlement building is fun but shallow. Repeling enemy raiders is only fun the first ten times, then you start sending the ghouls into a settlement with no water and food so they would leave and build a new society of all Blonds !

 

[Ajidica]

To get back to the games we are playing; I decided to try Empire Total War for the first time in over 5 years and I'm seriously surprised by it. The graphics hold up well, empire management is involved without being tedious, and the battle AI is not as brain dead as I thought it was. I mean, it will attempt flanking maneuvers with cavalry, generally avoids a general bum-rush toward my cannons, and I haven't once seen the enemy musketeers doing the infamous line-dancing in front of my Line Infantry - excepting of course when the AI tried to force a river crossing and was caught in a deadly crossfire of rank-firing Polish infantry and 6 lb artillery packing canister shot.

 

[Synobun]

To get back to the games we are playing; I decided to try Empire Total War for the first time in over 5 years and I'm seriously surprised by it. The graphics hold up well, empire management is involved without being tedious, and the battle AI is not as brain dead as I thought it was. I mean, it will attempt flanking maneuvers with cavalry, generally avoids a general bum-rush toward my cannons, and I haven't once seen the enemy musketeers doing the infamous line-dancing in front of my Line Infantry - excepting of course when the AI tried to force a river crossing and was caught in a deadly crossfire of rank-firing Polish infantry and 6 lb artillery packing canister shot.

It's my favourite Total War game, if only because the first Medieval Total War doesn't work no matter what I try.

I finished Dragon Age: Origins. Alistair had a temper tantrum and stomped off. I also made a demon baby. My wife doesn't know.

Onto Awakening! Or the other DLCs... I can never seem to convince myself to play Bioware's DLCs. Had the same issue with Mass Effect. Are they worth playing? I already started Awakening but I can go back and play the shorter ones if they're particularly good.

 

[Lohrenswald]

New Thread

 

[Commodore]

It's my favourite Total War game, if only because the first Medieval Total War doesn't work no matter what I try.

I finished Dragon Age: Origins. Alistair had a temper tantrum and stomped off. I also made a demon baby. My wife doesn't know.

Onto Awakening! Or the other DLCs... I can never seem to convince myself to play Bioware's DLCs. Had the same issue with Mass Effect. Are they worth playing? I already started Awakening but I can go back and play the shorter ones if they're particularly good.

With Mass Effect, I would say all the DLCs are worth playing except the Pinnacle Station DLC for the first game. That DLC didn't add anything to the story and the rewards you get from it are pretty lackluster.